Post by Deleted on Dec 11, 2004 1:24:26 GMT -5
Well crap. It's already 1am and I've just successfully unbanned myself and I probably have 3 hours of posting to do. (Just spent a good two hours reading the Hawaii and Minnesota threads.)
Plus I got to meet the Gordons tonight, so that was cool. I could tell Stacey was thrilled, too.
Where to start?
Gophers came out VERY flat in game 1. Tree is obviously not 100% and she was really struggling, especially offensively. How flat? Georgia Tech's first 8 points were: Gergen kill (more on that later, if I remember to remember), service error, hitting error, hitting error, hitting error, service error, hitting error, service error. That's right 8 of their first 9 points were Minnesota errors.
I don't think the Yale trip did the Gophers any favors. Not the travelling so much, but the competition. This is just a theory, of course. Penn State was also hurt by their early competition (although Maryland was an upgrade from past years), but then they are sent all the way to Seattle. (If it's good enough for Hawaii, it's good enough for the Lions.)
Game 1 couldn't be over with fast enough.
Things picked up considerably from there. Some random thoughts:
*Gophers really started to get on Gergen. Once that happened, Tech's offense became more conventional. They still run all sorts of double (and triple!) quicks, but the Gopher defense started to pick 'em up.
*The offense still seemed out of sync. Again, this had a lot to do with Bratford's health. But Taatjes (as Gorf mentioned--14-1-34 .382 for the night) and Nelson (21-3-39 .462) picked up the slack. Taatjes was hitting the ball as well as she ever has (and she's only been hitting for 1/2 a year). Not just the X in the middle either. She was banging from the right side. I doubt GTech planned for that.
*Paula was all over the place. She ran into the media courtside wall on one play. Amazing player. Minnesota's defense was amazing all night. Tech's started off slow but they were holding their own as the match went on.
*But the Gophers were cruising, having won games 2 and 3 by good margins and up 28-23 in game 4 when Tech sided out. You all know Moster served 5 straight to put them up by one before she served out. But Hebert, down to his last sub, chose to sub out Bratford for Reinhart at 28 all, after a timeout. Tech was serving at Tree. She was doing OK on serve receive, but the rallies were going Tech's way. A gutsy move on Hebert's part. Reinhart was in the rest of the game, rotating through the front row twice.
*Tech tried to go after Rhino. They were serving her and running slides at her. Gophers were left with Byrnes (who's been struggling offensively for a while now), Taatjes and Rhino as their front row when KBow was serving. They got by. They used KBow as an OH out of serve receive a couple of times (not when she was backrow obviously).
*An amazing game. Really amazing because it was so clean. Both teams were siding out with kills. Most of the points being scored were blocks. There were few outright hitting errors and only 1 service error.
*My scoresheet goes to 36. I improvised.
To be continued...
Plus I got to meet the Gordons tonight, so that was cool. I could tell Stacey was thrilled, too.
Where to start?
Gophers came out VERY flat in game 1. Tree is obviously not 100% and she was really struggling, especially offensively. How flat? Georgia Tech's first 8 points were: Gergen kill (more on that later, if I remember to remember), service error, hitting error, hitting error, hitting error, service error, hitting error, service error. That's right 8 of their first 9 points were Minnesota errors.
I don't think the Yale trip did the Gophers any favors. Not the travelling so much, but the competition. This is just a theory, of course. Penn State was also hurt by their early competition (although Maryland was an upgrade from past years), but then they are sent all the way to Seattle. (If it's good enough for Hawaii, it's good enough for the Lions.)
Game 1 couldn't be over with fast enough.
Things picked up considerably from there. Some random thoughts:
*Gophers really started to get on Gergen. Once that happened, Tech's offense became more conventional. They still run all sorts of double (and triple!) quicks, but the Gopher defense started to pick 'em up.
*The offense still seemed out of sync. Again, this had a lot to do with Bratford's health. But Taatjes (as Gorf mentioned--14-1-34 .382 for the night) and Nelson (21-3-39 .462) picked up the slack. Taatjes was hitting the ball as well as she ever has (and she's only been hitting for 1/2 a year). Not just the X in the middle either. She was banging from the right side. I doubt GTech planned for that.
*Paula was all over the place. She ran into the media courtside wall on one play. Amazing player. Minnesota's defense was amazing all night. Tech's started off slow but they were holding their own as the match went on.
*But the Gophers were cruising, having won games 2 and 3 by good margins and up 28-23 in game 4 when Tech sided out. You all know Moster served 5 straight to put them up by one before she served out. But Hebert, down to his last sub, chose to sub out Bratford for Reinhart at 28 all, after a timeout. Tech was serving at Tree. She was doing OK on serve receive, but the rallies were going Tech's way. A gutsy move on Hebert's part. Reinhart was in the rest of the game, rotating through the front row twice.
*Tech tried to go after Rhino. They were serving her and running slides at her. Gophers were left with Byrnes (who's been struggling offensively for a while now), Taatjes and Rhino as their front row when KBow was serving. They got by. They used KBow as an OH out of serve receive a couple of times (not when she was backrow obviously).
*An amazing game. Really amazing because it was so clean. Both teams were siding out with kills. Most of the points being scored were blocks. There were few outright hitting errors and only 1 service error.
*My scoresheet goes to 36. I improvised.
To be continued...